Things I love about Brazil

Some of the people we will miss the most - a group of friends from church.

AJP being rather patient at a very long Mother's Day show with BLP's school.

BLP performing a special song for me at her school's Mother's day celebration.

I started off our postings about Brazil a bit negative. I was not exactly happy to have this assignment. We would always tell people in Colombia when we mentioned where we were going next that we had an affinity for large polluted cities. It is funny how one’s first opinion of a place or rather attitude towards a place colors all the other perception. It took me a long while to warm up to São Paulo. In the end, I am glad that I did. We are ready to leave here in just a few days and as I reflect on our time here I have realized that it has been a rewarding experience. We have made wonderful friends and shared great moments as a family. Both of those things have been incredible blessings. I love our new friends more than words can express and know that, in many cases, the next time I will see them will be after this life. Our family has grown closer and shared together the challenges, beauties and rewards of the past two years. For the purpose of this post, I have chosen three less obvious things to highlight from the long list of loves. Below is a sampling of the things I love about our current (but for only four more days) home. I will try in the next few days to get JTP, AJP and BLP to do the same.

1. The crazy fanatical obsessive focus on soccer. The World Cup starts in a few days and the fever pitch of excitement is building in a palpable way. AJP and BLP have been trading soccer stickers and putting them in a book that has places for all the teams and the players going to the World Cup. Adults as well as children have obsessed about finishing their books. It has been exciting to be a part of this. I only wish we would be here for one of the games or the finals. On second thought maybe that is not a good idea since one member of our family (AJP) desperately wants a win for Argentina. I think we may get shunned or beat up if we were to stay.

2. Hortifruti do Campo. This is a wonderful little fruit and vegetable market that I go to. I would buy watermelon year round. There were always three or four different varieties each of tomatoes, greens, bell peppers, apples, passion fruit, oranges, melons, mangos, bananas and many other fruits. I was also able to buy lemons which were pretty hard to find here. I loved the smell every time I went in there. This time of year was especially nice because there are loads of fresh strawberries. The smell of them mixed with mango, orange and banana is just unbelievable.

3. Rodizio. This is a spectacular Brazilian variation to the traditional buffet. We have found two different forms – bbq, pizza and sushi (JTP is the only one that actually made it to that one). In this type of restaurant, the waiter brings around the food to the table and you get what you desire (just in case getting up and walking over to the buffet table is too physically taxing). The bbq version has terrific fantastic scrumptious meats and the pizza variety offers a number of unique and incredible pizzas to choose from. This style really showcases what Brazilians are proud of: their meat and pizza (well, the pizza is really a point of pride only in São Paulo). I have a propensity to vegetarianism but every time I go to either of these restaurants, I am very glad I have never fully committed!